This article should serve as a comprehensive picture of howsocial media and the internet impacts children and exposes themto financial exploitation and labor abuse by those they trust themost.

s and pays herself fifteen to twenty percentout of Sparkle’s earnings for her role as a manager.111 Luckily forSparkle, her mother distributes the rest of her earnings to anexternal manager, charity, bus

without laws regulating working conditions and protectingearnings, it is difficult to really know what is happening behindclosed doors.

Ryan’s parents want him to have as normal a childhood aspossible and prioritize his education over any of his work.106

many parents94 argue that what theirkids are doing is not labor because they have fun while doing it.95

Opponents

Critics of reg

018, Califor

legislatures refuse to recognize the work kidfluencers are doingwhen creating content for social media platforms.

Without theseprotections, kidfluencers do not have any legal rights to theirearnings and are subject to exploitation by their parents andemployers without any legal recourse.7

Another well

Watson v. Watson

eighty-fivepercent of child performers’ income is still left unprotected.33

e blocked trust account, however, a court mayorder more to be set aside.26 Additionally, all earnings of anunemancipated minor related to a contract defined in Section6750 of California’s Family Code “shall remain the sole legalproperty of the minor child,” not just the fifteen percent depositedin Coogan Trust Accounts.27

ine-year-oldYouTube star Ryan Kaji

Thus,kidfluencers need to be protected from their parents and theindustry the same way child actors are.

Some argue that just because the children areearning money does not necessarily mean creating contentshould be considered work

Smith would ask questions about his body and his transition that "hinted at being ... sexual, a little inappropriate," he said in Bad Influence.

In Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, Netflix sheds light on what many described as Tiffany Smith's abuse of underage content creators, who once collaborated with the single mom and her daughter, Piper Rockelle.

The Stauffer Life is a YouTube channel created in 2013,

V

Vlogging allows audience from all around the world to witness the Stauffer family’s life journey, the audience may feel as if they know the family personally by following up their new uploads, and become part of their journey through online interactions.

Not only vlogging provides families an easily accessible way for life narrating, it also allows the family to gain recognition by interacting with enormously large number of audience.

The Stauffer couple make part of their household income from vlogging.

it has become a new form of life narrative that allows families to quickly engage with audience from all around the world, and invite the “viewers” to witness meaningful moments and significant events in their lives.